In general commercial wireless networks do not encrypt and protect user information data that is transmitted over the air. Data security and integrity are expected to be handled by an end-user application. Most end-user applications that traverse via the Internet Protocol (IP) network rely on public key encryption methods for both end-user authentication and data security.
With ubiquity of wireless local area networks in public spaces, commercial wireless industry standards bodies have implemented an additional layer of security that serves as gatekeeping to grant access to only authorized users; i.e., users who have a correct network encryption-decryption key. An over-the-air transmitted radio frequency (RF) signal, however, is not protected from eavesdroppers. In contrast, most military wireless networks support both end-user data security as well as protection of over-the-air transmitted RF signal. However, such networks are closed and proprietary and generally cannot interoperate with commercially available wireless devices such as cellular phones, personal computers and tablets.